Aside from martial arts training – which is obviously the vast majority of what I do – I do enjoy weight training and have found it to be very beneficial for the martial arts and for my health generally. I do run, but I don’t really enjoy it … I just enjoy being out in the fields thinking my thoughts as I trudge up and down dale. If find running itself to be tedious though. Doing it on a treadmill almost drives me insane (I have a short attention span).

Physical fitness is obviously a very important part of the martial arts and anything that promotes that can help as well as providing variety in training. I therefore feel it is good to supplement the core martial arts training with other beneficial activities.

Right now I'm dealing with Synovitus, swelling in the tissue that surounds the knee joint so anything I do is limited to upper body. So I get into some weights and try to do more heavy bag work. Days of running and biking are over for me.

I also do weight training and cardio, which is essentially a part of my daily routine. Several of my students and I also train in yoga, which I have found suprisingly helpful. Not only does it improse core conditioning, flexibility, and balance, but I have also found that I stay more relaxed and that I am less injury prone. I have a senior student that trains in Tai Chi for the same reason, and swears by it's benefits.

As well as the Karate training, I weight-train three times a week, I cycle (a lot!) and I run. I tend to feel that if I don't do something every day, I get in a really bad mood. As well as that, I feel guilty for not training, if you can believe it. I'm 41, and another reason for all of this exercise is that I want to try to stay as young as possible for as long as possible, a feeling that is increased at the moment because we are going to have our first child this month and, in 15 years, I want to be able to kick a ball around with my son.

My main method of additonal training is the kettlebell. Fantastic piece of training kit - gives me everything I need for my training whether that be strength, conditioning, cardio workout, mental resilience etc. Haven't looked past it since. I started with it.

I also get to the gym once a week during lunch and have routines where we work through, starting off with running (hate running though, bores me no end) and then into a circuit that we have come up with from ones we have created, some that I would use as overlap from my kettlebell workouts or some from sites such as cross-fit etc.

I am lazy and already big enough, so no weights really for me. I do some bodyweight drills occasionally with club bells and chi ishi, and some kundalini yoga, some qigong postures like holding the tree.

Just for getting cardio, I usually hit the heavy bag.

I also made a speed/accuracy implement of sorts that is basically two tennis balls suspended between bungie cords, it is great fun! If you really go at it with determination to hit it explosively non stop, it is quite a workout.

At the start of the year I was running most days and doing hojo undo using chi ishi, nagiri game, and also kettlebells. Unfortunately, as the result injury and personal issues, I pulled a heart muscle (ie: got too slack) and stopped doing it. My regular karate training continued so I managed to keep some level of fitness.

I've just started jogging again, and am also participating in a strength training programme called Frontline at Perth's Muscle Pit gym. These videos will give you a bit of an idea of what we do:

The training is hard, but I really enjoy it. I've been doing this training once per week for about six weeks and I'm already seeing improvements in my core strength. I plan to reintroduce the hojo undo training once I settle into my jogging routine.

I've been running for 3 years, and now run half-marathons. I took up Karate 9 months ago and found running to really be important for stamina, particularly pushing yourself during Kata training. If I've ever not run for a couple of weeks (due to injury), my stamina levels drop very quickly during Karate. Apart from the stamina, I can't really see where else running has helped with Karate. I thought it may have put me in a good position to handle the front/back stances, but obviously not!

Conversely, Karate has improved my core muscles no end, which is very important for running (and particularly the knees). It's all been very painful whilst my body adapts. Front and back stances are finally not so sore and I'm feeling the benefit of both on each other.

Hill running is great for those Mae Geri's!

I do realise though that strength training is very important, and the one thing missing from my routine.